


The Burning Sky

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dagor Bragollach, Gen, Maedhros-centric, all the worldbuilding, somewhat dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:58:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1830376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maedhros' thoughts during the Dagor Bragollach and its immediate aftermath. (Effectively a remix/rewrite of my story Only Ashes Left Behind, but from a different point of view.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Only Ashes Left Behind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/987603) by [Beleriandings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings). 



The dark is coming as we prepare to ride out of the gates. For a single moment, I allow myself to look up. The northern sky is black, but the east burns red, a dense cloud squatting above the lands like a living thing, malevolent and without mercy.

“Lord Maedhros, the host is ready.”

I turn, and see that it is Morenil, one of my captains, who has spoken.

“Good.” I think of the archers I have placed him in command of, waiting in the main courtyard to ride out, if all has gone to plan. “And their gear?”

“As you ordered. Light armour, leather only, no steel.”

I incline my head, thinking of dragon fire. “And the helms?”

“Wrapped in soaked cloth, and each soldier carries a waterskin with them.”

I give a curt nod to show him my approval. It is all I can muster now. “The mounted bowman are with you” I tell him again. I long to ride with them against the dragon, but I cannot use a bow with one hand. Thus I must lead the host that will ride in force against the orcs that have poured into the green lands, to bring aid to my brother’s people, and get the survivors back to Himring. _Assuming there are survivors._ I grit my teeth, forcing my attention back to repeating to Morenil all that Findekáno has told me about fighting Glaurung.

“Try to surround him, but keep your people clear of his lashing tail, and the fire that comes from his mouth, of course. Shoot at the eyes, nostrils, and the inside of the mouth, for the scales will have hardened with age…” I try to remember if there was anything else. “If that doesn’t work, his armour is thinnest on the belly. Setting the arrows aflame will not help, it will only take time, so don’t be tempted to try…”

He is nodding, for we have been over this before. I put my hand on his shoulder, glancing quickly into his dark eyes, before swinging myself up onto my horse. Morenil smiles at me. He is full of confidence, I can see that, despite the garbled rumours of fire and destruction we have been hearing from Dorthonion and from the east both. _It should be me. It should be me going into danger, fighting the foe that endangered Findekáno once, even if my cousin’s victory was an easy one when the dragon was young._ I curse my missing hand, my weakness, but that is an accustomed routine now, and I quickly turn my mind back to what we are about to do.

I cast my eyes about the courtyard, where the cavalry have formed up, ready to ride out along the steep downwards ramp that curls about the mountain when I give the order for the gate to be opened. Archers, swordsmen, spearmen, all lightly armoured and with their helms wrapped in cloth against the dust and the smoke. I stare back at that lowering dark mass. It is a dangerous thing that we are about to attempt. Somewhere beneath that cloud is the dragon, and with that creature I have a score to settle, as I do with the crawling orcs that have poured into our lands like carrion flies to rotting meat. And somewhere out there, also, is my brother, and I mean to get him out alive.

I take a breath, savouring what may be the last taste of cold, clean air I will have, if the everlasting darkness is to take me. I wrap my own length of cloth around my head and tuck it in at the back with a deliberate motion, before running my hand over the pommel of my sword, feeling its familiar weight at my hip. _This is what I am for now._

“Open the gates!” I bark out the command. I swallow, glancing around at my archers, already driving their spurs into their horses’ flanks. The gates rumble open, the eight-pointed star snapping in the breeze high above the guard tower where my command echoes in many throats as the wind begins to tug at our horses' braided manes and tails. We do not wear the distinctive red-plumed helmets of the house of Fëanor; on this errand it would be ill-advised indeed.

The sound of our horses' hooves is loud on the paved ramp down the mountain, echoing as we pass under the arches of the way-castles. I grit my teeth, fighting to resist the urge to order the host to charge down the ramp like thunder. Time runs short, yet still not short enough to risk such a charge on a steep ramp such as this. _If I were designing the citadel again, if I had a blank sheet of paper…_ I scowl, reminding myself that the sheer ascent up the mountain is what makes Himring nigh impregnable, and that any redesigning that may be done is a matter for peace time. _If peace time ever comes again, without Himring falling into enemy hands…_ And from there the issue is academic, for if Himring should fall into enemy hands then I will not be alive to see it; I will either die in the ruin of the citadel, or take my own life rather than be captured. Of that much at least, I am quite certain. I have a tiny dagger, honed to surgical sharpness, at my belt; I have practiced drawing it quickly many times, using a blunted wooden replica to perfect the slicing motion that would be needed to cut my own throat. Much quicker and more efficient than falling upon my sword, especially if I have lost all other weapons. _If I have lost everything._

The ramp deposits us on the west side, and we must swing back around through the Marches to get underneath that grim cloud that covers the northern and eastern sky. The pass of Aglon is retaken; that much at least we could do, and nothing has given me greater satisfaction these last few weeks of fighting on the Marches than quelling the tide of orcs that flooded through the deep defile in the mountains, cutting through their ranks with the force of our cavalry. My sword singing in the half-light, steel forged by my brother’s hand burning with silver fire. _I only hope it works a second time._

We are on flat ground at last, so at last I urge my host on in a charge. I can see the orcs in the distance, black specks on the scorched plains that were once so green. I glance up at the cloud. I can see structure to it now, a red fire that seems to be inside it, although I cannot see its source on the ground. _The dragon...?_ It is farther south than I had guessed, and I cannot see the rolling hills of the Gap at all, I cannot even see the river. If Glaurung has already passed through the Gap, then Macalaurë may be dead already, and Thargelion will be next to burn, then the forests of Ossiriand… _No. I will not let him have my brothers, not one._ I turn to Morenil a little way off and give him a nod, the signal for the host to split in two. _Let it not be too late._

I draw my sword, and with a great cry, I kick my horse into a gallop, hearing the pounding of hooves on hard-packed ash and sand behind me. Already the dust is thick, choking, stripping moisture from the back of my throat with every breath. I can see people ahead of us, the bright flash of what can only be Ñoldorin steel, for the enemy armours his hosts only in black, crudely painted.

There is plenty of that black armour visible too, and now that we are closer, I can make out individuals fighting. I see bodies fall, on both sides, and quicken my pace, the air heating up and thickening as we get closer. We fan out, and someone behind me blows a great war-horn, the sound falling curiously flat in the smothering dust cloud, directly above us now, narrowing the world all around. I hear my people shout war-cries; “ _Lord Maedhros!_ ” “ _Tenn’ Ambar-Metta!_ ” “ _Himring!_ ” and, once or twice, “ _Fëanáro!_ ” Languages mingle, for the ban holds little sway when Þindar and Ñoldor charge together, bound to each other by death and blood, steel and fire.

Myself, I do not speak, or cry out, for my mind is focused, I feel free and clear; this is what I am now. My sword blends with my arm, hands mean nothing, my hand is the blade. I am deadly, slashing and hacking, fire rising up in me from I know not where.

It is only briefly, in moments like this, that I can glimpse a little of my father in myself, however much anyone else points out the resemblance. It is in moments like this that I can hope to be the sort of heir he would have wanted, to fight for what is ours and protect my people, to begin to pay back a little of the blood debt that is owed to the Black Foe. That debt is one that runs deep, and I cannot hope to even scratch the surface. But until the life runs from my veins into the gasping dust beneath our horses’ hooves, until the orcs tear me limb from limb and leave me broken and nerveless, until I fall down into the blackness that must come in the end, the dark from which I will never rise; until then, I will never stop fighting to protect those I love and to fulfil my father’s last wish, for in that is truly all I am. In that moment, _this_ moment, I am more than a broken thing, more than a dispossessed and shamed kinslayer, more than love or family or even the light that we have lost. In this moment I burn silver. I burn so, so bright.

With our horses, light armour and our veiled faces, we have the advantage over even the orcs in this dust. Morgoth knows that they cannot breathe in sand and ash, although they have been fed on foul, choking air all their lives, hardened by fire, but he sends them anyway; orcs are disposable to him, for he has them in endless numbers and they breed faster than he can send them pouring over our fair lands. They cut at me and at the flanks of my horse with their scimitars, little more than crude black shards of metal, although wickedly sharp. But the advantage is still ours; even the most thickly muscled of them can do little against us on foot. The attack on the Gap had been a surprise, intended to prey on the refugees fleeing the dragon. Macalaurë’s people were caught unaware, deceived into thinking that the enemy would try to take the Pass of Aglon once again, rather than coming through the Gap, so the evacuation turned into a desperate flight. The enemy did not expect aid from Himring to come in time, I would guess.

Sure enough, they are breaking apart and running even at the sight of us now, and I begin to feel a twist of triumph… _no. Not until I find my brother alive, not until we have gotten as many of the people to safety within the walls of Himring as possible._

We round up the last of the orcs, those that do not flee into the dust cloud; it is easier at least than fighting on the Marches, on slippery scree-slopes and in mountain streams, where the threat of rock falls is real and constant. Where deep defiles can open at one’s feet, barely visible from a distance but able to lame a horse with frightening ease or swallow mount and rider whole, dashing both upon the rocks. No, in comparison, this is simple, despite the thick heat and the choking, acrid dust. Finally all the orcs have been driven out of sight – although admittedly we cannot see very far at all - and we are left with bodies strewn the ground, bodies from both sides. I give my horse a pat on the neck, as if to apologise for bringing her into this acrid cloud, hoping it is not taking too much of a toll of her. Her sleek white coat is grey with soot, turning black, as, I suppose, am I. She tosses her head, as though to deride me.

I go through my accustomed routine of squinting at the faces of the slain, picking a careful path through the small clusters of bodies, trying to see if there are any I recognise. Too often there is that momentary jolt when I see an old friend, or else guilt when I feel less for a stranger who died none the less cruelly. Today my heart is beating even faster than usual, for I see Macalaurë’s sigil everywhere; there is a very real chance that my brother is slain. All around me I see heavy plate armour, shields, helms that would heat up to red-hot temperatures in the burning glare of the dragon-fire, and some of the dead bear the marks of just such a painful death. I shake my head and swallow, nervous suddenly. The ground is still baking hot, and dust is still in the air, stinging and burning the roof of my mouth even through the cloth. I can taste blood at the back of my throat, sharp and metallic. I try not to imagine what inhaling this for any length of time would do to the lungs. I take a sip from my water skin, just enough to allow me to speak. There are a scant few civilians amongst the survivors, and I see gratefully that my horsemen are already offering them water.

“Get the refugees back to Himring, as many as you can” I shout. After a moment, I add “…but do not spend so long searching that you are caught in the next wave of the attack.”

“Lord Maedhros, you think the enemy will return?”

I grimace. “Return? I am certain of it. Now go! Hurry.”

They hasten to obey, shepherding men, women and children into groups. Many are wounded, the most common injury being burns; many children and adults alike are crying, silent tears tracking through the soot on their faces. These are not soldiers. There are pregnant women, there are musicians and artisans who do not know how use a sword, for the Gap had been renowned once for being a centre of culture out here on the frontiers, as well as having the largest civilian population of any of our realms in the east. I remember sitting in Macalaurë’s study, helping him with his evacuation plan should they come under attack. It had been a good plan, and the soldiers impeccably drilled in its execution. But it had been too slow in the end, or the enemy had moved too quickly, and we had not factored in the dragon. The plan had relied on forces from Himring arriving sooner.

I ride across the battlefield over which the refugees – the survivors - have fled, my jaw clenched and my eyes burning in the smoke, my vision narrowed to a mere slit where the thick, dark cloth parts. Very few carry any possessions, suggesting to me the haste with which they fled. There are a few things all have in common though; all are black with ash from head to heel, and all have the same haunted look in their eyes, huge and afraid.

All around, people are binding the wounds that will not wait, helping those that cannot walk onto horseback. I glance around, suspicious at the lack of a renewed attack, loosening my sword in its sheath and keeping a light grip on the hilt. I walk away from the main press of people, searching, ever searching, dreading what I will find. It does not take long for me to get far enough away that I can no longer see them through the dense brown haze, and sound fades too, to a dull background roar which would make me think my ears were flooded with water if I did not know better. Suddenly I feel a tug at the trailing end of the cloth wrapping my face, which has come loose in the charge.

“Maitimo!”

I wheel my horse around, drawing my sword in an instant, searching in front of me for the source of the voice, cursing the cloth that cuts off my peripheral vision. The speaker had used my mother name, so it was unlikely to be an orc, but this could easily be a trick, a snare of the enemy. I stare around, seeing nothing.

“Maitimo, I’m down here!”

The voice sounds high and scratchy and broken, but somehow familiar. I look down. There is a figure half-crouching and half-kneeling behind a cluster of dead orcs just behind me, in plate armour that is slick with blood from what looks like a wound to the shoulder, where breastplate meets pauldron. The armour is Ñoldorin in style and the figure wears my brother’s colours, and looks to be someone high up in the line of command. Nevertheless I neither dismount nor sheath my sword; the speaker’s face is hidden by a helm.

“Who’s there?”


	2. Chapter 2

With an effort, the wounded soldier rolls a dead orc from off a foot, and pulls off the helmet. Even through the gloom, I recognise that mop of bright red curls, and a familiar face, now pale beneath streaks of soot, sheened with sweat. “Carnimeldë!” A cousin, the only one of our cousins from the house of Mahtan to travel across the sea, and one of Macalaurë’s generals. Her face is twisted with mingled pain and relief. I dismount and go to her, seeing only the bloom of blood at her shoulder.

“Maitimo, ” she cups my face in her hands as I kneel beside her, her voice still cracked but suffused, now, with a touch of hope, and I do not even feel the involuntary twitch of displeasure at the sound of my old name.

“Meldë” gently, I help her sit up straight. “Listen to me, you need to get yourself to Himring. There are healers there, and supplies, and - ”

“Nelyo” she coughs, and I unhook my water skin and pass it to her. She drinks gratefully. “You need to find Macalaurë. He got separated from us, we were fighting on the plains as we fled the dragon. I didn’t… I couldn’t see where - ” she bursts into another fit of coughing and worry stabs at me, for I fear this dust will be the death of us all if we keep breathing it for too long. The dry heat rolls over us in waves, enough to make my head spin. _But somewhere out there my brother may yet be alive…_

“I’ll find him. Don’t worry. Do you know how many survived…?”

She shakes her head, wincing in pain. “Few, I fear. But it’s so hard to tell, there was chaos, it was a rout. People were fleeing, and we could not hold the our lines together against the orcs… forgive me, Nelyo. Forgive him. We have failed. The dragon is likely halfway to lake Helevorn by now…”

“Oh, Meldë, it was not your fault, nor my brother's. None of us could have predicted this.”

“There was still more we could - ”

I glare at her, urgency rising in me once more. “There’s no time, you must save yourself, do you hear me? Go to Himring, so you can heal. Live. Keep fighting. We need ones such as you.”

“And what about you?”

“I am going to go after Macalaurë, as you said. Can you walk?”

She gets unsteadily to her feet, leaning heavily on my proffered arm, before taking a few steps. “Yes.”

“Take my horse” I tell her. “My people are helping the survivors to safety. Join them and - ”

“No! I’ll go, but I won’t take your horse. If you do find Macalaurë, then he might be…” she does not finish the sentence, but she does not need to. “I’ll be alright.”

I do not argue, for I know I would never convince her, and I do not have the heart to command her, as a lord instead of a cousin. Not now, not about this. “Very well.” I help her cut away what remains of her singed cloak, and wrap a broad strip of it around her head to keep out the worse of the ash and dust, using the rest to make a rudimentary bandage for her wound. Swiftly, she throws her arms around me and for a moment we hold each other tightly, wondering if and when we will meet again. Finally we break apart, and Carnimeldë draws her sword, turning back the way I had come.

“Be safe, Carnimeldë.”

“And you, cousin. See you in better times.”

 _In better times._ I am about to reply, but she is already starting to disappear into the gloom, and after a moment I can no longer see her at all.

I mount up again, and ride off in the direction she had indicated, loosening my own sword in its scabbard once more. There are no corpses here. _Have I left the battlefield proper? Am I going in the wrong direction?_ The ground is still scorched as far as I can see in every direction, but that means little.

Sounds are dulled, and so the first orc is close by the time I turn around to see it, coming from behind and to the right, cutting at my horse’s flank and at my leg. But it makes no matter; in one fluid motion, I turn, draw my sword and parry the next blow, before it can so much as graze skin or leather with its cruel black steel. I ride on ahead, faster than it can follow. More come, from all sides now, but I simply sweep by as they loom out of the cloud on both sides. I could stop and make short work of them, if I cared too, but they are merely a distraction; orcs are a well-known enemy and they are on foot while I am mounted. If there are more orcs, it simply means that I am approaching the place where there is battle still, the place where Macalaurë must surely be. _Whether dead or alive._

There are others now, Ñoldor and Þindar, armoured and fighting. I see the eight-pointed star, and many look up as I canter past, but they do not recognize me with my leather armour and my covered face.

“Where is your Lord Maglor?” I cry out as I pass, but receive only shrugs in return. With a growl, I lash out at an orc that is fighting a young Þindarin spearman, who is bleeding from the temple. His helmet has been lost (although I see the imprints of the cheekguards burned into his skin as if by a brand) and his silver hair is stained black and red with soot and blood.

“Go find him!” cries out the youth after nodding his thanks at me. “You have a horse, whoever you are. You must find Lord Maglor.”

 _His people love him well._ I am momentarily torn. “Where is he?”

“That way!” He gestures to the left of the way I had been planning to go.

I nod. “Get to Himring. You will have aid there. Get as many as you can to safety. Do you understand?”

He nods hastily, and I ride in the direction he indicated. The fighting gets thinner as I go, and I feel guilt, for I should be there, I should be fighting with them… I grit my teeth and spur my horse forward, listening to the roaring darkness, each sense attuned for some sign of my brother. _If I don’t find him, I will have to return…_ I put the thought from my mind. _I will find him._ The enemy knows full well that the capture of any of my kin is the surest way to break me. I will not allow him that, not while my heart still beats.

“Maglor! Macalaurë!” I call out desperately into the dark before me, knowing there is a vanishingly small chance of him hearing me. My eyes smart, the dry, ash-filled air causing tears to start at the corners, blurring the narrow slit of vision that the cloth allows. I blink back the tears angrily. They are an inconvenience that I cannot afford.

“Brother!” No answer. My voice is cracking, my throat dry, but I cannot reach for my waterskin even if I am to ride without holding the reins. Quick access to my sword is more important.

Small fires burn on the ground all around me, and their black, oily smoke adds to the brown haze in the air, making it even more difficult to see any distance ahead. My horse shies from them, and we weave a ragged, half-blind path across the burned plain. _This is pointless_ , I hear myself think. _You will never find him like this. There is no hope._

And yet, I keep going. Of course I keep going. Once I might have listened to that voice, in my weaker moments. Findekáno taught me better. I imagine my brother Macalaurë in pain, wounded, dying… my brother with his slate-coloured eyes and his laconic manner and his molten gold voice and the way he drums his fingers on the table when the conversation gets interesting. My brother who was always a musician first and a warrior second, my brother whom I will never not feel I have to look after.

I can see a dark silhouette ahead, and as I get closer it becomes an orc, unusually tall and muscular, armoured in black. It is leaning over something, a dark shape that I cannot quite discern… a kneeling figure, I realize, kicking my horse into an all-out run now. Something is falling from the kneeling one's grasp, hands going slack at their sides and head tipping back… what was that that fell?

A glitter of metal amid the smoke.

Two, in fact.

Two curved blades, dropped from the hands of a kneeling form, dark hair falling back from a head wearing no helm.

I am close enough to see a face now.

My heart stops.

“Macalaurë!” I call put again, but it is no good, and I watch in horror as the huge orc raises its scimitar, high above his head for the perfect killing blow, imagining the smile twisting its cruel mouth. I push my horse even faster, but it is no good, _I will not make it, I cannot make it, I will see my brother slain in front of me, I will not be able to save him…_

The moment stretches out into a burning infinity. I am shouting, a wordless cry that is pure rage, fire rising up in me, and suddenly I am there, my horse’s hooves eating up the distance as if she were Nahar himself. My sword is in my hand and I feel my arm arc out in a graceful circle, elegant but with all the force of my hatred for the enemy behind it, all the fire of destruction I have stored up in my heart for those who would hurt the ones I love.

My blow connects with the sinews of the creature’s neck, perfectly and exactly, and then its head is sent careening through the air to land on the ground a little way off. It hadn’t even seen me coming, so intent had it been upon my brother. The heavy body crumples to the ground, black blood seeping into the dust.

In haste, I leap from the saddle, unwinding the swathe of cloth wrapped about my head as I go. Macalaurë is still on his knees, his face smeared with dirt and sheened with sweat, as Carnimeldë’s had been. His eyes are wide, white showing at the edges.  _Is he wounded?_   From a distance I assumed that the twin vertical red streaks upon his cheeks were blood, twin gashes, but now I realise that they are burns, the pattern of the cheekguards of a helm, just as I had seen on the spearman’s face. After a moment I am at his side, kneeling down in the dust beside him. His eyes are too bright, glazed with pain and fever. Perhaps he thinks this is a dream. His voice, when it comes, is a broken thing, quiet and barely audible amid the roaring of the hot wind, the whispering of the dust that fills the air.

“ _M-Maitimo_? Is that you?”

“Macalaurë!” My own voice, I realize, is little better. I try not to cough, suddenly very aware the lack of the covering that had kept the worse of the dust from my lungs. “You’re alive. I thought for a moment that I had come too late - ”

He tries to speak, but bursts into coughs instead, coughs that wrack his body in spasms, but there is no blood in his mouth and nose, as far as I can see. I must cling to what little hope there is. His face is a mask of pain, and I wonder if he has other wounds that I cannot see. Checking that we are not under immediate attack, I sheath my sword, and take out my waterskin, undoing it as Macalaurë leans heavily on my right arm. His eyes blur in and out of focus as I raise it to his mouth, lips cracked and blistered by the heat. He coughs but swallows the water gratefully, and I see his gaze become a little clearer. I use the rest of the water to dampen the cloth I had been using as a veil, as Macalaurë hauls himself to his feet, leaning on me heavily. I wrap the cloth around my brother’s head, tucking the corners in carefully. He clings to my arm.

“Maitimo” he coughs. “The Gap is lost. We couldn’t hold it. The dragon – I – I’m sorry.”

“Hush. I know. I know. Some of the survivors made it to Himring.” _Or so I hope._ “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose you too. Come on.”

Arms linked, we take small steps to where my horse waits, not far off. Suddenly Macalaurë stumbles. “I - I can’t - ”

 _I can’t._ Findekáno’s face swims before my eyes, mouth set in determination. _“I can’t”, I had said. I had said it over and over again, screaming inside my own skull, on the mountainside, the place of my torture, and then after, every time the world had seemed to loom too large and painful and hopeless. “You can” he had told me, and “you can” and “you can”, every time until the message had eaten its way into my mind, my heart, until it had become a part of me and I had no choice but to believe it._

I grit my teeth. “Yes you can. Come on.”

And so I pick his two blades up from where they fell to the ground, (I have never known my brother to drop his swords before and it disturbs me more than I can say) then help Macalaurë into the saddle, before mounting behind him. He sways alarmingly, and so I hold onto him, pressing his body close to mine with the stump of my right arm over his shoulder. _Keeping him safe, as an elder brother should._ I do not want to go too fast lest he slip from the saddle in front of me, but, looking at Macalaurë, I cannot help feel a sense of urgency.

His head tips forwards, and I hold him tighter as we pick up speed. His hair is singed on the left side, burnt ends protruding from the cloth, and his helm is lost. _Metal heats up quickly out here._ It is then that I notice his hands, bunched in front of him. The palms are burned raw, angry red and shiny below a layer of caked dirt and grit. There will be so many burns to treat, I realise now. But it is the smoke and the ash that will kill most, I foresee. I am beginning to feel its effects now, the dust tearing at the back of my throat until I can taste the iron tang of blood. The smell is acrid, and I begin to feel dizzy, starved of air. Macalaurë, by the looks of things, is suffering the effects even more. He is nearly spent, weakened by his injuries and by breathing the poisoned air for to long, and by simple exhaustion. He is silent, too silent, except for his breathing which comes in ragged gasps.

“Macalaurë, hold on” I whisper desperately in his ear. “We’ll get you back to Himring safe. It’s not far.” His head falls forward again, nodding on his dinted breastplate. Desperation enters my voice, tearing it ragged. “Come on, stay with me for a little while longer. Just a little. For me. For your Maitimo.” My voice cracks as I say my old name, for the first time in longer than I can tell. I cannot hear him breathing anymore and I fear the worst, but then I can hear little, for the hoofbeats below us and my own painful breaths and my heart pounding in my ears all sound too loud as we ride flat out across the plain.

There is no one left here, now; I hope that means they have made it to Himring safely. I do not have time to investigate. My brother’s head bumps against my arm around his chest and under his chin, eyes closed.

The gates of Himring are closed as we thunder up the ramp, after what seems like an impossibly long stretch of time. Days could have passed for all I could tell before we broke out of that cloud, the cooler air of the mountains breaking over my face, tasting of relief. _A relief, yes, but not a reprieve._

“Open the gates!” The command rings out from the guard tower as the watchers recognise me. I should have them punished for giving the order so lightly; the servants of the enemy can assume many forms, and could easily mimic my appearance, especially from a distance. I would have dealt out punishment in other circumstances, certainly; if my brother had not been clutched to my chest, slipping in and out of consciousness, hurt, _dying…_

My horse’s hooves clatter against the paved courtyard as I reign up and the gates are closed quickly again behind me. Suddenly there are people all around, hands rushing to help me.

“Lord Maedhros!” The cry spreads, joy in their voices. “Lord Maedhros is alive! He has returned!”

“My brother is wounded” I cry out. “We must get him to the healers with all speed.”

Then there are hands, tugging at me, at Macalaurë, and he is being lifted from my arms, the cloth removed gently from around his head. I see joy and horror on the faces of some as they realize just whom I have plucked from death on the battlefield, clinging to life. My head pounds, as he is lifted onto a pallet that has been brought from one of the medical tents erected in the courtyard and one of the healers’ underlings presses me with questions. _What happened to him? Where is he wounded? Is he bleeding? How long has he been unconscious?_

I answer as best I can, feeling powerless as Macalaurë is borne away from me. My mind suddenly snaps to an image of Findekáno, carrying me in his arms, broken and bleeding, half a corpse. _I lived, but it could have easily gone otherwise…_ I understand a little better now how he must have felt then and the knowledge cuts at me, setting me longing to see his face, to have his sure optimism, steady amid the whirling chaos of battle.

Someone is tugging at my right arm, and I realise, to my surprise, that I have been wounded at the crook of my elbow. Blood blooms bright, flowing freely down the leather of my vambrace, seeping into the lines of the eight-pointed star that has been burned into it, the geometric patterns around. I felt no pain when I took that wound, indeed, I did not notice it at all. But now I flinch away, an old habit, a reflex when that arm is touched.

Indeed, with the flood of pain and exhaustion beginning to wash over me as my heartbeat and breathing slows, I barely restrain myself from lashing out to strike whoever it was that touched me. _I thought I had lost that reflex long ago. Findekáno would -_ I scowl, squeezing my bleeding arm against the pain to dismiss that thought and stop it going any further. There is a lot of blood, but the pain is not unbearable, and I do not think it is a deep cut. _Very well then. Another scar._

I allow myself to be led past the temporary medical tents, into the healers’ quarters; cries go up from the bustling crowd around when they catch sight of me there, and bleeding, but quickly turn to jubilation as they realise that I am not dying, merely hurt.

There are too many wounded, burns mostly. The houses of healing are spilling over, the hastily-erected medical tents too. There have been makeshift screens set up between some of the pallets, but they do not block out the screams, and the air is thick with the smell of blood.

I stay standing, refusing to even sit on a stool that could be used for one of my people, someone who is hurt more grievously than I am. I am given water and I drink gratefully, realizing only now that my throat is burning, parched. It frees my voice a little more, but also causes another stab of pain as it moistens my mouth. I drink in gulps until the flagon is empty.

I cannot see where Macalaurë has been taken and I crane my neck over the heads of the healers, to no avail, then stare out of the window at the grey-red haze still visible on the eastern horizon as a young, frightened-looking healer cleans and binds the gash in my arm. I press him for information, although later I will not remember my exact words or his answers. Only that so few returned, and of those that did many will not last the night. They are running out of bandages, of poppy and willowbark to ease the pain, of athelas to prevent infection from the swords of the orcs. The smoke from the dragon flame, I am told by several different people, is poisonous; it is imbued with the darkness that made it, it is unnatural… apparently even the ash is a death sentence, sharp, glassy particles that will tear the throat, get into the lungs. There is much concern for its victims, and I am fussed over at length, for there is some black spell placed on the dust, it leeches the _fëa_ away even as it weakens the body, scratching at eyes, nose and throat. All I can think of is Macalaurë, who breathed in so much of it, and his head falling onto his breast as I carried him across the plain. I ignore their pleas for me to sleep, to rest, to take something to ease my pain.

“Lord Maedhros!”

It is the young healer, sand-coloured hair sticking to his forehead, his freckled cheeks red, panting a little, for his elders surround me now and have sent him to run errands. I whip around. “What news?”

“My Lord, your brother.”

I glance at him sharply. “Yes?”

“He…” he hesitates. “He will almost certainly live.”

I stay the smile that threatens to break across my face. “ _Almost_ certainly? Speak plainly.”

“He was badly hurt, but no single injury is life-threatening, we hope. He has three broken ribs, likely from a fall from a horse, there are many such injuries - ” I nod, for it is well-known that the enemy’s orcs aim for our horses with their black bolts, for horses are our advantage over him. _Take out the horse, leaving the rider crushed underneath, to be seen to with the sword if necessary, left to bleed into the dust…_

“ – and his neck and face were burned, his hands more grievously so. You were wise to lead our people out wearing leather armour, my Lord.”

I nod, distracted. “What else?”

“Many small cuts and bruises, a slight concussion, but it is the smoke inhalation that is… concerning…” he hesitates. “The enemy’s fire, the dragon’s fire, the ash and smoke have strange properties; it is not like that of regular flames. We do not understand it, it seems to have - ”

“- some spell placed upon it, yes, yes, so I’ve heard.” The youth quails under my gaze, and I relent a little. “But he will live, you think?”

He hesitates once again. “The head healers have all examined him, and he has been given poppy and taken to the blue apartments, away from the houses of healing. He sleeps, which is the best thing for him.”

I nod, for the blue apartments are next to my own private turret, where the family stay when they visit. Irrational though I know it is, I feel better with Macalaurë closer to me.

“Lord, do you want to see him?”

I frown, feeling exhaustion creeping through my bones, and longing to see my brother. But guilt drags at me, for I know I should be on the walls, amongst the defenders. “Later” I tell him. “It is enough to know that he is out of the worst danger.” I look him full in the face, clasping a hand in mine. “Thank you, young master. Now get back to the healers. Your help will be needed.”

With a hasty nod and a bow, he scampers away, and I sweep from the houses of healing out onto the battlements. Sleep prickles in my eyes, and I realise I have little idea of what time it is, for it is winter and dark anyway. And even during the daylight hours the world is transformed into perpetual red-brown twilight, the air thick and abrasive even at this altitude. But I can see the dull, glowing red circle of the sun overhead, like the shimmering blind spot behind the eyelids when one stares at a bright light for too long. It is about midday, I judge, and I realise that I have been awake all night.

The banner emblazoned with the eight-pointed star hangs limp in the motionless air above, darkened with ash and soot, the scarlet field against which the silver star blazes turned the colour of dark, dried blood.

“What news?” I call out ahead of me, once again. “Have the archers returned?”

The guards on the walls turn to look at me, bowing. “No my Lord, Captain Morenil is still in the field” says a young, half Nandorin marchwarden. I recall that she was formerly in charge of one of the small way forts that dot the roads through the Marches, one that we had to abandon early on. I struggle to dredge her name up from the depths of my memory.

“Thank you…”

“…Neledhwen, my Lord.” She bows. “Also, the Lady – Captain – Caranel was here looking for you.”

 _Carnimeldë._ “She is wounded and should be resting” I say, half to myself.

Neledhwen shrugs apologetically. “She went to see your brother.”

I sigh, for guilt still assaults me, from more than one side. “Very well, I will go find her there. Is all well on the walls?”

“We are not under attack, my Lord, but it is hard to see anything in this…” she gestures out at the dust cloud, and I nod.

“I will send out scouts tomorrow, unless Morenil and his archers return with news by the next sunrise” I tell her, thinking aloud. “If they do not return, well…” _They will return. They must. I cannot afford to lose so many._ Not for the first time, I curse my inability to use a bow, to have led them myself… I have half a mind to ride out still, but I quell the thought almost as soon as it emerges. I am needed here, Himring needs me. Within these walls, for a while at least, is a pocket of comparative safety, but it needs me at the helm.

I stare out over the plains again, seeing nothing. This war is one of stops and starts, of short bursts of intense violence followed by long lulls in which there is little to do but pace and worry, wondering what the enemy’s next move will be. The period of something approximating peace had lasted long this time, centuries, allowing us to think the enemy had forgotten the war, or was afraid of us, even. And then the flames had come rolling over Ard-galen, over Dorthonion, the inferno that had become a funeral pyre for Angaráto and Aikanáro. _We had been wrong, and it had cost us more lives than my fierce, bright younger cousins' alone, so many lives, and more still would pay the bloody price before this was over…_ I sigh. With a final nod to the guards and the order to send word directly to me if anything looks amiss - or if anything stirs at all - I sweep down the spiral to the main court.

Suddenly there is a cry from above, on the guard towers; my head snaps upwards to look, my hand going immediately to my sword.

“It is Captain Morenil! The archers are returning! Open the gates!”

My heart still beating hard, I hurry to the main gate to await the arrival of the archers. When the portcullis is raised and they come thundering through, I am immediately struck by how few there are, horses and riders alike looking half-dead from exhaustion, wild-eyed and stained with red-brown dust from head to foot.

There do not seem to be any wounded, which I find odd for a moment, before realizing that the wounded, on such a mission, are unlikely to return. One of the archers gets down off his horse, and unwinding the cloth around his face, he bows before me. I see dark hair, but it is long and braided back neatly, not short and curly as I had expected, and his skin is lighter than Morenil’s despite the dirt.

He looks up at me and I nod at him.

“What news? Where is Morenil? And what of the dragon?”

“My Lord… he hesitates. Captain Morenil is dead, slain in the fires of Glaurung.”

“Grave news indeed” my mind works furiously to process this, thrown off course by the death of my guard captain and friend. I set my jaw, my mouth a thin line. There will be time to mourn later. _If we are not under immediate attack…_ “What happened? Tell me everything you can recall.” I take him aside into an alcove off the main courtyard as I speak.

“Our arrows seemed to drive the dragon back, at least for a while, but then they did not seem to be able to pierce his armour.”

I frown. I had suspected this, for he was young when Findekáno had fought him… I think, absurdly, of the lizards that would bask in the light of Laurelin against the warm stones in Tirion, tiny, bright green creatures that were worlds away from the golden monstrosity that menaced us now.

“And then?”

“We pursued him across the plains, but he was so fast, it was hard to keep up…” his face twists as though remembering something terrible. “And then… without warning he breathed flame at us. It was so sudden, and…” his face is ashen. “It all came down to where you were. More than half the host was consumed in an instant, Morenil amongst them.”

I stare at him. “And after that?”

“We were forced to retreat, for we lost Glaurung, we could not possibly hope to keep pace with him, and we were too few…”

I nod, for it is what I would have done in the circumstances too, although the decision would have surely pained me to make. “Did you see where he went?”

“South. Over Thargelion, certainly. My Lord, we think he is on his way to Lake Helevorn…”

My heart pounds. _Carnistir’s people._ I cling to the hope that my brother, seeing the cloud on the horizon, would have the good sense to lead his people to Ossiriand, to join Ambarussa. He would have had longer to lead an evacuation, I tell myself. We had even discussed this once. Carnistir has an eminently practical mind and is a formidable mover and organiser of people, but worry still squirms inside me. I sigh, looking at the young archer. “What of the enemy’s remaining force of orcs?”

“We cut our way through on the way back, but with even greater losses.” He looks pained. “Lord Maedhros, I am sorry to have to tell you this, but… they surround Himring. They are out of bowshot, and out of sight, hidden in the dust cloud” he gestures out through the gate. “But more are coming, I’ll wager, reinforcements. They’re making a ring, all around the hill, although the enemy means for us not to find out about it, to take us by surprise. But, my Lord… to all intents and purposes, we are besieged.”

 _Besieged. It is as I had feared._ I touch his shoulder with a sigh. “Thank you. You have helped more than I can say. Get yourself to the healers now.”

“I am not hurt, my Lord!” he protests.

“The smoke and ash is treacherous, and you have been breathing it for too long. Same goes for the rest of the archers. Tell them, would you?”

With a nod and a deep bow, he turns on his heel and returns to the others. I am left standing in the courtyard, wondering what fate holds in store for us. If we are truly besieged, Carnistir would have been our main hope of breaking through the enemy’s lines, but if he and his people have fled, as I hope, I see little chance of deliverance by outside aid. More worryingly, much of the food and other supplies we need to feed the refugees displaced by the burning of the Gap would come from trade with Thargelion, and if stores begin to diminish we are as good as doomed with all other roads in and out blocked. I wonder if it will come down to trying to predict what will kill us first, hunger or lack of steel to fight the enemy if we are attacked. I stare out over the plains, where everything is once more still, maddeningly, frustratingly still, while the bustle of the courtyard, furious and frantic, rages about me.


	3. Chapter 3

The corridor that joins the blue apartments is jarringly silent after the ordered chaos outside. The walls are thick here, blocking out the world, and I feel the need to mute my ringing footsteps on the flagstones so as not to disturb the still air.

As I stare at the door behind which my brother sleeps, I feel a strange sense of detachment, as if the years have fallen away and I am not the Lord of an embattled fortress, not scarred, not the dispossessed. As if I am tiptoeing through one of the long, windowless corridors of Formenos, similarly lit by lampstones in brackets on the walls, the handsome, cocksure, charismatic but frighteningly naïve youth I once had been. But I am not that boy; my missing hand, my scars, the memories of the darkness that came between bear ample witness to that. This is emphatically not Formenos, but Himring; war rages outside, and that bright young creature with his easy surety is stone dead.

I open the door. Inside, sure enough, Macalaurë lies in the wide, blue-covered bed; eyes closed, perfectly still. His chest rises and falls softly, regularly, and the rhythm of his breaths gives me comfort. His singed hair has been cut to jaw length. There are thick pads of white linen bandage on his cheeks and nose where the metal of his helm was in contact with his skin, and his hands are swathed in bandages, his fingers thickly wrapped.

I frown, remembering his long, delicate fingers drumming on the table, plucking at the harp or lyre or viol, stained with his favourite blue ink one morning after spending the whole night composing. Pointing to lines of defence on a map of the east, or wrapped around the hilt of his sword, red blood running over his knuckles… _the blood of kin._ I close my eyes, trying to block out that particular memory, and sit down on the bench that has been set at Macalaurë’s bedside. There is a jug of water on a low table, and two glasses. I pour a little but do not drink. I lay my hand, very gently, on his forehead, feeling the delicate warmth of his skin, the beat of his pulse in his temple against my thumb. His eyes do not move behind their lids.

I wonder where my other brothers are now. There has been no news except for the cruel deaths of my cousins Angaráto and Aikanáro, and even that is open to doubt. I can still hope that it is only a very pervasive rumour, a lie invented by the enemy to drive us away from seeking aid from Dorthonion, but until I know for certain I must assume the worst. News from all directions has been cut off, as has traid. We will soon begin to run as short of supplies as we do of information. I shake my head a little, giving a quiet bitter laugh at the prospect of a siege. _And we had thought that we were the besiegers._

There is a knock at the door. “Nelyo?”

I recognise the voice immediately, although it sounds more ragged, cracked, as I suppose, does mine. “Come in, Carnimeldë” I call back quietly.

I feel her sit down next to me on the bench, her eyes on Macalaurë’s face. I look at her, taking in the clean bandages at her shoulder, the scratches and minor burns on her cheeks, her swollen and broken lip. She looks strange without her armour; I have grown used to seeing her on guard when I have visited the Gap over the years, girt with steel. Now she wears a plain green linen tunic and brown breeches, her wild red curls bound back with a strip of leather. I feel my stomach lurch unexpectedly, for she reminds me suddenly of my mother, in her work clothes, perhaps. Her eyes do not leave Macalaurë’s face.

“How are you feeling, Meldë?”

She shrugs, looking at me for the first time. “Good enough, I suppose. They bound my wound, but they said I shouldn’t use that arm too much.” She wrinkles her nose. “How am I supposed to fight now, answer me that, Nelyo? How am I supposed to help you win this?”

I smile weakly. “I could teach you to fight left-handed if you insist. _Or_ , you could wait for it to heal like most people do when they’ve taken a stab-wound and lost as much blood as you have.”

She grins. “Sorry. I just want to help. I feel…” she twists her fingers together in her lap. “I’m not used to being out of my armour. It makes me anxious.”

I glance out of the window. “Well, there’s no immediate, obvious threat to fight. They’re not attacking, they’re just waiting, and we do not have the strength to fight so many, not unless there is no other choice left. I will send out scouts soon, I think, but in the meantime…” I shrug, helpless. We lapse into silence. Carnimeldë is looking at Macalaurë again.

“I failed him” she says, at last. “I shouldn’t have left him there.”

“Did he order you to leave him?”

“I…” she reddens a little. “He ordered me to take a company ahead.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. “You are his guard captian, Meldë. Obeying him is what you’re supposed to do. Don’t blame yourself. Besides” I add, as much to reassure myself as to comfort her. “The healers say he will be alright.”

“They do?”

I nod.

“Oh, Nelyo.” Her voice is thick with relief. She leans against my shoulder, wrapping her arms about me and pressing her face to my chest. I feel her tears dampening my tunic, and encircle her in my own arms, leaning against her hair. I have not seen Carnimeldë cry since she was a little girl. She was always strong, fierce and fearless, in Aman and Beleriand alike.

She draws back at last, her eyes red-rimmed, but dry now. “No news, I suppose? Of your brothers? Findekáno?” She smoothes my hair back from my face. She looks concerned, for me as well as for them.

“None.”

She does not bother with false reassurances, only slips her arm through mine. For a long while we sit there in thoughtful silence, watching over Macalaurë as he sleeps.

“Meldë” I say at last.

“Yes?”

“I am going to need a new guard captain. Once your arm has healed, would you want to - ?”

She is smiling bleakly. “You already know I’ll fight for you until the day I die, Nelyo.”

 

\----------

 

The day fizzles out to nothing, followed by an interminable night. Dawn finds me walking the walls once more, but there is no sign of any attempted attack. There is no news either, and speculation is rife; _what of Thargelion? What of Ossiriand?_ Many of my people have kin in my brothers’ lands, and the long silence helps fuel their dread. The very air seems to swarm with fear. There are rumours that Himlad has fallen, and that the woods of Ossiriand are burning. That we will be next.

Last night I sent out scouts, as well as heavily armed messengers, who will continue to the south and west, if they find the ways to be safe and passable. The scouts were under strict instruction to return at daybreak this morning, with news. Yet the sun has risen and still there is nothing.

We watch, and wait. There is nothing to be done at the present moment, and I am simultaneously exhausted from lack of sleep, and unable to sleep, restless, impatient. I try to eat a little, for I know that I should, although I feel anything but hungry. My wound itches beneath the bandages. I walk the walls, talk to the guards, but no one has much to say.

Another day slips by, and then it is night again. I sleep for a few hours, fitfully, but my dreams are filled with dark things, with my brothers fleeing, dying, silhouetted against red fire, tiny black spots to be consumed in an inferno that reaches up to lick at the very stars themselves. Then there are the dreams of Findekáno in the hands of the enemy. In the dream he is chained to the rock face, and I can do nothing, or perhaps I _choose_ to do nothing… I wake, tangled in my bed sheets and biting back a scream. The room is still silent and dark.

I get up and dress and wash, before going up to the observatory, straining my eyes even through the spyglass trying to pierce the darkness to the north. I take the cover from the palantír in the locked cupboard in the corner of the room, sit at the table with it, but once again, all I can see is smoke, dust. Each time an image begins to look substantial, it melts away, disappearing into swirling haze as red as blood and flame. _My father would have been able to see more, perhaps._ I sigh, and resist the temptation to hurl the cursed thing across the room so that it smashes into a thousand pieces against the stone wall. Instead I lock it back in the cupboard.

I spend the last, lonely hours of the night by Macalaurë’s bedside, watching him sleep. I spoke to the healer who changed his dressings yesterday; he is healing well, and they should be able to stop giving him water laced with poppy soon. He will wake soon after. It will be good to have him back, I think, as I smooth the hair back from his sleeping brow. To hear his voice again. To know that even one of my brothers is under my own watch, safe at least for a time. Or at least as safe as any of us are.

As the sun rises, Galineth, Himring's head of trade and supply, finds me in my study, writing letters that I will not send. Her quick, dark eyes run over my desk and the pile of paper there, but she says nothing. _Perhaps she knows the feeling, for her sister Elenniel is under Lalwendë’s protection in Barad Eithel… cut off from her, with no news._

“Maedhros. I could return later, if you - ”

“Galineth” I sigh, apologetically. “I am sorry, I should have spoken with you earlier.”

Galineth comes to sit on the corner of the desk and hands me a sheaf of paper. Ostensibly in my employment, she is more like another younger cousin to me, one of my dearest friends, and I feel a twist of guilt for being too busy to see her for the last few days.

“The current inventory of our supplies” I muse, paging through the list. “Thank you Galineth, I should have - ”

She smiles. “It’s my job; you have yours.” The smile falls from her face as she watches me read. She runs her fingers through her short curls of silver hair, her hands restless. “I fear we have not enough to survive a siege of any great length.”

I look up at her. “We may yet not be besieged. The scouts have not yet returned with news of the enemy at our gates.”

“But it’s likely that we are.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

I return to the list.

“Grain will be a problem first, I suspect,” she is saying. “Food in general, actually. Our largest imports were from Thargelion and Hithlum, and both routes have been blocked, even if…” she falters. “Even if our side still holds those lands.”

I purse my lips, remembering my brother Carnistir’s assurance that Himring would always have have food from the east, for the altitude is too high to grow anything much up here or to keep livestock in significant numbers, the slopes of the Marches too steep.

“And the stores?”

“We have enough to last the winter” she grimaces. “Just. But that would be on tight rations, even with the usual population of the citadel. Do you know…?”

 _Do you now how many there are._ So many have been slain, but the refugees from the Marches and the Gap more than make up for the number of mouths to feed, I suspect, and more come every day. “I do not know. I will call a census, if it would help.”

She smiles tensely but gratefully. “It would. Thank you.”

I look back at the inventory. “And what of weapons? Armour?”

“Another problem. We are running short of steel, of leather, of wood to fuel the forges.”

I wrinkle my brow in consternation. If the winter to come is a cold one the lack of wood will be felt in other ways too. The winters up here are punishing, and there is speculation that if the cloud remains to block out the sun this one will be the cruelest since the sky was lit again.

I sigh. “Alright. Then I suppose we need to devise a rationing plan.”

“Actually, I have already given it some thought…”

We sit for the better part of the day, talking over allowances, rations, trying to make the numbers add up. By the time we are finished, the sun is beginning to set on the western horizon, dull and bloody. I stand, flexing my back to work some of the stiffness from my muscles, while Galineth collects her papers, squaring off the edges to make a neat bundle.

“That should be good enough for now. Once the census is taken, we shall know more. Thank you, Galineth.”

She smiles wanly up at me, drops a slight, half-ironic bow. I see her eyes slip over the papers on the desk that I had swept aside this morning when she had come to speak to me. “You were writing a letter to Fingon, weren’t you?”

There are very few people, especially outside the family, who would ask such a bold question, but from Galineth it seems entirely acceptable and almost inevitable, with her blithe honesty and impatience with people who do not cut straight to the heart of things. Sometimes it feels as though she _is_ actually a part of the family, although she is still Mithrim Þindarin through and through, in face and voice and mannerisms. When I was on the point of returning to my brothers’ camp and assuming my kingship again (wrapped up though I was in thoughts of abdication) Galineth and her sister Elenniel were at the head of a small band of survivors of an orc raid on a nearby village, the daughters of a minor lord of that people who had been slain in the attack. They led their scant few people to Ñolofinwë to seek aid, in exchange for fealty. Elenniel was made companion and advisor to my aunt Lalwendë and the two of them promptly fell in love, although no one is quite certain of the order in which those things happened. Meanwhile, I found Galineth having a spirited argument about geometry with my brothers Carnistir and Curufinwë in the courtyard when they came to visit me. That was the beginning of our friendship, which has only grown deeper since.

She had caught me off guard with her question though, and I suddenly realise she is still expecting an answer. “Yes.” I see no point in lying. “Not to send, for it will never reach him anyway, but…” I frown.

“Writing helps to clarify your thoughts?” She nods sadly. “Me too.”

We stand contemplating the letters, side by side.

“Barad Eithel is strong” I say at last. “Stronger than Himring now, probably. I would not worry.”

“But you _are_ worrying” she points out, and with that I cannot argue.

“Fingolfin and his people are feared by the enemy” I say at last. “It may be that Morgoth has set his sights on Dorthonion and the east simply to gain an extra foothold for a later attack on Hithlum. To stop us from coming to their aid.”

Galineth gives me a withering look. “Thank you, Maedhros, for those encouraging words.”

I know she is trying to make me smile, to ease my fear, for that is her way. I am grateful for it.


	4. Chapter 4

The scouts return that night.

Or perhaps that is not precisely the term for it.

Until now, the enemy has not fired on our walls, has not even shown any hint of the force that encircles the hill, save for the vague black specks in the distance, rising out of the haze and hinting at a surrounding host of indeterminate strength and size.

When the missiles come over the walls I am checking the watchfires in the second guard tower, warming myself by a brazier with the guards against the cold night air. The fire has left me night-blind, so I do not see the objects that come arcing over the walls on the opposite side of the hill. I hear the shouts though, the calls to take cover, that the enemy is firing on us.

We hurry to the spot, guards seizing swords and spears, nocking arrows as we go. I draw my sword, a sharp sliver of firelight glinting off the blade. As we reach the place, there are cries of horror, of outrage, but, as far as I can see, no grappling hooks, no swarming orcs coming over the wall.

Instead there are strange misshapen objects raining down, but they do not shatter stone, as a cannonball or a broken piece of masonry would. I stare. They are large, and the smell… I inhale, wrinkling my nose.

Then I realise. They are heads. Severed heads, the blackened helms they still wear striking sparks against the stones. I pick up a helm that has rolled away into a corner and see the eight-pointed star graven into the dinted steel. With a snarl, I order the guards to take cover under their shields until the cruel rain slows and stops.

We gather the heads for burial, stomachs clenching, bile at the backs of our mouths all the while as we dare to look at faces, hoping that we will not recognise anyone. We do of course; these are the scouts I sent out, that much becomes clear very quickly, although the faces are broken and bloodied, and the mouths gape. Some have eyes that are wide open, staring. _An accusation._

And then, as suddenly as the assault had begun, there is nothing again.

We remain out on the walls for some time, watchful and silent, but there is no attack that follows. It is as if we have been sent a warning, and now we are being mocked. The guards are restless, and whispers begin to fill the air as we try to see, to pierce the blackness of the long night.

It is bitter cold now even by the watchfires, our breath streaming from our mouths and noses in hot, vital bursts that shimmer in the dancing firelight. I draw my cloak closer about my shoulders, but even thick wool and heavy wolfskin seem to offer scant warmth tonight. I feel, instinctively, for the dagger at my belt, and then leave my gloved hand to rest lightly on my sword hilt, staring out into the dark.

My left hand's fingers are numb, but I can feel the fingers of my missing right hand, suddenly, burning with chill that reaches to the bone, the rushing ache of sensation returning. I flex my left hand, trying to restore circulation, and touch the stump to still the pain that I know is only in my head, the old disorientation coming back to drag at the corners of my mind, even after all this time. It only serves to send a lance of pain through my still half-healed battled wound as I bend my right elbow, and I let out a hiss of annoyance at being so weakened.

The guards have lapsed back into silence, and a creeping sense of despair hangs low over Himring. In the distance, we can see a dark red glow illuminating the fog from the inside, but it is so dull that it could easily be mistaken for the brightness left behind in the eyes by staring too long into the flames. I know better.

Suddenly there is a scrabbling at the gates, shouting and a clatter of horses’ hooves. I hurry to the main courtyard, slipping a little on the smooth paving stones in my haste, but not stumbling. The watcher at the gate tower calls down to me.

“Lord Maedhros! A single rider on the ramp!”

I frown. “What colours?”

“They bear the eight-pointed star. Looks to be one of ours, my lord!” There is a slight hint of a question in his voice.

I pause, my mind turning over the possibilities. I set my mouth in a firm line, motioning silently for the guards to surround the entrance. “Open the gate!” I call at last.

The horse is lathered with sweat, eyes wide and white. But the rider does not appear to notice, and dismounts calmly enough as my guards converge, trying to still the animal which is now snorting and tossing its head. The rider’s head swings around, eyes gravitating towards me.

“Lord Maedhros.” The rider falls to one knee at my feet, head down, and I cannot see a face. But there is something in that voice, something I cannot quite place.

“Rise. What news?”

The rider rises, and takes off his helm. Underneath his face is pale, blond hair pressed close against his skull. I recognise his face. “Amarthion.” He is one of the scouts I sent out. _One of the ones whose heads were not thrown over the battlements, apparently._

“Lord” he inclines his head again, and as he does so I catch a glimpse of something in his eye, so quick I may have missed it… a gleam of dark silver, too bright, _unnaturally_ bright… then it is gone, leaving my mind reeling, _remembering_ … I collect myself hastily.

“What news?”

“Much.” A small smile plays about the corners of his lips and I realise that his voice, of all the voices I have heard in the last few days, is not cracking from the cruelly polluted air. “The enemy is strong.” His speech is fluid, smooth, with little inflection. “His forces mass outside the citadel. Himring will fall. Lord Maedhros, I regret to have to inform you that he has your brothers Caranthir and Amrod hostage. If you were to…”

My mouth tightens as I interrupt him. “You lie.”

He spreads his hands apologetically, that slight, indulgent smile back on his face, edged now with cruelty. His eyes are burning fever-bright. “No. I have been given a message to bring directly to you, my Lord. I bear you no ill will. Would you harm a simple messenger for the news he brings?”

“No. But I would unmask a thrall of the enemy.”

It happens in an instant, before the guards can rush to my aid. He snarls, his face twisting in the firelight, like a demonic thing, all teeth. He leaps upon me, no weapons in his hands, merely nails, scratching at my eyes. His teeth are at my throat, where my armour ends, and they are _sharp_ , sharper than any teeth should be; they graze my skin and I am under no illusion that he would not tear my throat out if given the opportunity, if I should slip for an instant... he is horribly strong, although I am taller, and his weight knocks me to the ground, on my back, landing painfully. But even as I fall I am drawing the dagger at my belt, the one I always keep so sharp.

It leaps into my hand like a shard of bright flame and even as he claws at me I am thrusting it upwards, into the soft hollow of his throat, until his eyes are wide and he lets out a horrible, choking gasp. His blood soaks me, cascading over my hand and over my chest, and it is over as quickly as it began. The body slumps over me, a limp weight.

It must have only been seconds that we fought, I realise now, as the guards reach me, as they roll Amarthion’s body off my chest. I am breathing hard, my blood roaring in my ears. A thrall of the enemy. It was lucky it had been me to speak to him, for I had seen them before and knew the look in the eyes, that preternatural dark silver brightness… I look down. Amarthion’s eyes are dark grey-green now, the colour they had been before, but now they stare unseeing, glassy, up at the dark sky, the flames from the torches dancing in them and making a mockery of life. I close them gently, with a bitter, sorrowful sigh.

 

\----------

 

There are more of them after that; of course there are. I should have anticipated it, I realise. A trickle becomes a steady stream, some bringing news, some attempting to claim safe harbour within the walls of Himring. All have the same bright light in their eyes, subtle in the torchlight, but there.

We turn them away, every one.

The children are the hardest. It claws at my heart to send them away, to stop my ears to their pleas. Little ragged children with bare feet and ash on their faces and hope in their burning silver eyes. I force myself to remember the thralls I had seen in the dungeons of Angband, how the enemy was entirely in control of them, although he could choose to make it appear as they still had free will if it served him. _But then they would turn…_ once in the early hours of the morning, one of the guards takes pity on a child, a skinny little girl who is all gangling limbs and huge shining eyes brimming with tears. I do not notice in time.

She tears his throat out with her teeth, as he is turning to hand her out a bowl of broth cooked over one of the braziers on the walls. Then she pushes over the brazier, leaving his partner screaming in the corner under the hot coals. It takes six guards to restrain her, for tiny and thin though she is she has been given terrible strength in those wiry limbs by the Enemy. We do not harm her but bind her and take her outside the gates, shutting them for the last time. For hours after we hear her shrieking, like something from a nightmare, and the sound of her flinging herself against the unyielding gate.

People wake, enter the courtyard. Some weep, some beg and beseech the guards to do something, _anything_ to make it stop. Some pray, some wretch. I do nothing at all, but merely stand watch there, a silent vigil for a night of horrors that feels as though it will never end.

But it does end, and finally silence falls. There are no more thralls coming to the gate. All is horribly quite and still in the ghostly half-light before the sunrise.

Still, Amarthion’s words ring in my ears. I know that my unrest is exactly what the enemy intended and it infuriates me, but I cannot help myself. _My brothers. Captured._ I remember the cliff, the unyielding metal of the bond biting into my flesh… no one would come to rescue them. Unless I go, but I cannot, for I am stuck here... _no_ , I tell myself. _It was a lie. It is all lies. Close your ears to it._

It is easier said than done.


	5. Chapter 5

That morning Macalaurë wakes. He finds me standing out on the little balcony of my study as the sun rises, looking north. I turn as he approaches. “Welcome back, Macalaurë.” I try to keep my voice light.

“Gone are the days when I could sneak up on you unnoticed, apparently.”

His voice cracks, and he coughs. I recognise the thin and reedy quality to it; the survivors who spent any length of time breathing in that toxic ash and dust all have voices like that. It tugs at me like a fishhook in my heart to hear my brother’s voice, as familiar as my own to me and yet usually smooth as liquid gold, so affected. He stands at my side, following my gaze over the Marches. Visibility has gotten better over the last three days, yet still the sunrise is a bloody open wound on the horizon.

I try to steady the tremor in my voice as the cold wind lifts our hair about our faces. “How are you?”

“Well enough to guess that I would find you here. Have you been out here all night?”

 _A good guess, and perhaps in normal times he would have been right._ I will tell him of the horrors we have faced in time, for he must know. But not yet; it is too soon after he has awakened, after he was broken, hurt, and I do not have the heart for the full tale of this last grisly night now. It is too fresh for me too. And so I do not answer his question, but regard him in consternation. “Are you still in pain? The healers gave you something to make you sleep, a poppy infusion, but…” _what did you dream when you lay there and I held your hand, sat by your bedside, paced about the walls? Were your visions as dark as mine?_ I shake my head. “Anyway. It could have certainly turned out much worse. You were - ” I stumble over the words “I mean – I cannot hide the fact that… I thought there was a very real chance that I would lose you. You – inhaled a lot of smoke, and when you blacked out, I thought - ” I break off. _Why am I telling him all this? It will only make it worse for him._

But Macalaurë pulls me swiftly into a hug. I let him hold me, to draw as much reassurance for himself from the touch as his presence gives me.

“Maitimo” he whispers into my hair. “I am fine. I am not even in any pain.”

Macalaurë has always been one to hide his own pain as best he can, although I know he feels everything acutely. I pull back. “Macalaurë, I appreciate the sentiment, but that’s the biggest lie I’ve heard from you in a long time. You nearly died of suffocation, you had three broken ribs, you were suffering from severe dehydration, and your hands, arms and neck were seriously burned where your armour was in contact with your skin. The healers tell me you have made great progress in the last three days, but please don’t try to spare my feelings by telling me you’re not in any pain. They said you would not be able to speak properly or sing for a while. The small, sharp particles of the ash…” I pause, wondering for a moment whether I should even be telling him all this yet. “But you will heal. Your hands, too. You may be able to play the harp again soon, so I am told.” _Something positive at least. Some little glimmer of hope that I can give him amidst all this. That’s what Findekáno would do._ I take his bandaged hand in mine.

He does not meet my eye. “But what right have I to get away unharmed?” He blurts out at last. “When so many are dead? What was I _for_ , but to hold the Gap and write my songs? But now my lands are lost, and what need have the dead of music?” His words come in a rush, a touch of hysteria behind them, panic and anger at himself, poison bubbling up from his throat. I know, for it is how I feel too. I must be frowning, I realise, for he catches himself. “I am grateful that you saved me. Thank you, Maitimo. But I failed you. I did not deserve it.”

It hurts me to hear him speak like this. I grit my teeth. “There was no _deserved_. You are my brother, and you needed my help. I did not see it as a choice.”

Macalaurë’s face twitches, but he does not reply. The silence expands between us as I realise what I have said. Does he think my words are barbs, poisoned with old resentment? A resentment I truly no longer hold, if indeed I ever had? Does he think I mean to take some sort of moral high ground over him? That was never my intention. My words come too quickly, each stumbling over the one before. “I did not mean - ” I draw a breath. “Macalaurë, I forgave you long ago.” _He must believe me. I must make him understand._ “But I, unlike you, _know_ what happens if we lose. If I lose you. As I said, I did not see it as a choice. It was a different situation.”

He looks at me for a long moment, then turns back to contemplate the wasted plains before us, far below. I look too, watching the ash swirl in eddies as the sun rises. When he turns back to me his face is softer.

“Three days, you said?” He hesitates a moment. “What has happened… since then?”

And so I give him an edited account of it all, all that has happened in the last few days and before that. Though I leave out some of the details for the time being, it feels good to confide my fears to him, although guilt pricks at me for burdening him with it all so soon after he has regained consciousness. But he will need to know. He will rule beside me now, I suppose, for he is my brother, and Himring will do well to have him. Not that he would be able to leave, or have a home to go back to even if he desired it.

Afterwards we stand together in silence for a long while, side by side and looking off towards the implacable north, each lost in our own thoughts.

At last Macalaurë gives a sudden shiver, violent and involuntarily. I turn to look at him, and he smiles at me, ruefully. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but it’s bloody cold up on this Valar-forsaken rock of yours, Nelyo.”

I cannot help but smile. “Macalaurë, you tell me that every time you come here.” _But this visit may be more permanent than most_ , I think. I do not say that though. Instead I take off the fur trimmed cloak that I had hastily pulled on over my thick layers of boiled wool and place it around him, for he is wearing only a light linen tunic and trousers, old things of mine, for all of his own clothes were lost. The air is bitterly cold up here, and my eyes begin to sting. I place an arm around my brother’s shoulder, drawing back a little as I remember his broken ribs.

“We will outlast them” says Macalaurë, and I know he is trying to reassure himself as well as me. Speaking aloud is his way; words hold him together. “We will survive. Himring is strong.”

“Yes” I reply. _The winter ahead will be long and bleak. Let us hope his words prove true._


End file.
